At the core of Neutral Milk Hotel's highly acclaimed 1998 album is an exploration of love and the process of unity and separation.

Traditionalism is the key to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, beginning with their devotion to the past -- but it's a past with all the rough edges, those cuts that make us bleed, rendered dull and ineffectual.

Worldwide Skyline is an impressive release. Ross' musicianship is flawless, and his elegiac lyrics an absolute delight. Ultimately two EPs may have made a lot more sense, but what the hell, it's still streaks ahead of his psych-folk kin.

Like a cross between Vandaveer, the Decemberists and Sufjan Stevens, Brooklyn songwriter Argyle Johansen [a.k.a. John F. Wentz] hammers his way into your ears with the multi-layered textures from Inner Demo(n)s, his latest album.